


Get a Clue

by Kacka



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-30 20:40:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6439657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kacka/pseuds/Kacka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Detective Bellamy Blake is so busy picking fights with the Medical Examiner that he doesn't notice she's instigating them on purpose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Get a Clue

What’s really sad is that Miller has to point it out. 

Bellamy is a detective. He’s supposed to pick up on things. And though he wouldn’t say so, it’s not like he hasn’t put a lot of brainpower into trying to figure Dr. Clarke Griffin out. She’s not the kind of person who flies below anyone’s radar. Especially not his. If anything, she’s smack dab in the  _ middle _ of his radar.

Perhaps that’s why he doesn’t see it: she’s like a magician, distracting him with one thing only to slip the real trick right under his nose.

That’s the only explanation he can come up with for why he doesn’t realize that the Medical Examiner is stalling every one of his reports until he offers to go hound her and Miller says, “Sorry to disappoint you, Blake, but that won’t be necessary.”

He waves a file at Bellamy that is apparently their autopsy, and doesn’t look the least bit sorry.

“How did you get that so fast?” Bellamy frowns, one arm frozen inside the jacket he was shrugging on. He and Miller are both relatively young and new to the force, so they don’t get assigned cases together a lot. But if Miller has some kind of pull with the ME, who has simultaneously been the best and worst parts of Bellamy’s work life since he transferred, Bellamy either wants to work with him all the time or make Miller his new guru.

“Seriously,” he says, taking the file and flipping through it indignantly. “Teach me your ways.”

“There’s no trick to it,” Miller smirks. “I know you two have that weird feud going so I went ahead and put my name as the officer to contact with the results.”

“Are you telling me she intentionally delays my reports?” Bellamy asks, incredulous less because it seems out of character for her and more because it had never occurred to him before.

“Are you telling me you haven’t noticed?” Miller laughs. “No wonder you still give your own name. I just figured you were jumping at the chance to rile her up.”

Bellamy runs a hand through his hair, feeling like an idiot.

“If anything, I’ve been putting my name down  _ more  _ because I thought everyone had to go down and yell at her to get anything done.”

“What, you thought it was your job as the rookie?”

Bellamy shrugs noncommittally because it’s less embarrassing than owning up to the fact that he often looks forward to going down to the morgue and getting into a heated discussion with Dr. Griffin. That he saves up insults in his mind, that he times his visits for maximum inconvenience, that he always leaves with a smile on his face even though he should be feeling annoyed.

He doesn’t think he’s the only one enjoying it, either. He can see the gleam in her eye when they’re verbally sparring, the way she’ll bite the inside of her lip so that her glare doesn’t shatter into a smile.

As fun as it is to go a couple of rounds in the ring with the ME, he didn’t think either of them were actually stooping so low as to interfere with ongoing investigations.

He tries to put it out of his mind while he and Miller are working the case, but canvassing the victim’s apartment building puts them right near the morgue, and, well, he’s never had the best impulse control. 

Seeing as it’s lunchtime, he directs Miller to Kane’s Diner, a restaurant around the corner, and receives an eye roll when Dr. Griffin’s neat blonde braid draw his eyes immediately.

“You’re the least subtle person I’ve ever met,” Miller says. “I know you were trained better than that.”

“In my defense, I’m not trying all that hard.”

“If you guys get into a screaming match in this restaurant I will arrest you both.”

“We’ll take it outside first.”

“That’s not reassuring.”

Miller wanders off, presumably to distance himself from the showdown. Bellamy can’t entirely blame him as he strolls up to where Dr. Griffin is seated at the counter.

He can’t recall exactly how bad blood came between them. All he knows is that it was his first case and he was anxious to make a good impression with his superiors. He’s self-aware enough to admit that he might have been a little too brash, a little too arrogant and commanding  in his efforts to exude authority, in his efforts to prove himself. 

He hadn’t felt like he belonged, not really. He’d been a cop for a few years and had dreamed of making detective, but when the time came he felt as if he were just playing dress up. 

It hadn’t helped that the Medical Examiner was pretty, young, and just the type to stand her ground against his bull-headedness. He wanted to prove himself to her more than anyone else, and for some reason he decided the way to do that was to critique her timeliness and question her credibility. Since that first meeting, he’s found her to be frustrating– still slower than he’d like with his results, insisting that her job can’t be rushed– but brilliant. More than once, her insights have helped him untangle tricky cases.

Still, he has this mental image of Octavia’s E-Z-Bake oven catching fire when they were kids, this vivid memory of how quickly a potholder went up in flames before he was able to get it under the faucet, and talking to Dr. Griffin always feels a little like that. It’s exhilarating, a total adrenaline rush, but it often takes on a life of its own. It’s a dangerous edge he can’t quite back away from.

“I’m surprised your job doesn’t put you off your lunch,” he says, leaning against the counter and taking satisfaction when she startles.

“Seeing your face will do the trick,” she tells him, saccharine. “Did you decide bothering me at my place of work wasn’t enough? Do you have to ruin Kane’s for me too?”

“Someone’s got a big head. How was I even supposed to know you’d be here?”

“I just assumed you were stalking me. I suppose I should find a  _ real _ cop and report it to them.”

“Miller’s back there,” he offers, stealing a fry from her basket. “But you don’t have grounds to press charges if I just so happened to notice tons of takeout containers from Kane’s at your office and took it as a recommendation of this fine establishment .”

“I’m not sure you know the definition of stalking. Which worries me, considering your profession,” she says, but she sounds amused. “How come you’re over here bothering me instead of eating with Miller?”

“I have a bone to pick with you.”

“Of course you do.” She gestures to the stool next to her and he raises his eyebrows at her, keeping eye contact as he steps closer to her, coming around the seat on her side and lingering a little too close for another moment before he sits down. “Just a sec,” she tells him, turning and waving at the man working the register at the other end of the counter. The back of her neck is red and it’s kind of the best. “Hey, Marcus, can I get a chicken salad sandwich and fries for my friend?”

“Sure thing, Clarke.”

There are so many things Bellamy wants to say about that interaction. He doesn’t know where to begin.

“Friend?” Is what comes out of his mouth first.

“I’m using the term loosely.”

“What if I didn’t want the chicken salad?” He asks, when he doesn’t have a good comeback.

“Then I’d take it for later. I eat free here, so you won’t be out the money either way.”

“Huh.” She’s known here. She doesn’t have to pay for her food. He’s burning with curiosity but there’s a bigger issue at hand. 

“So Miller said something interesting today.”

“I’m not surprised,” she says, sipping from her straw. It draws a lot of attention to her lips, and he’s struggling to stay on task. “Miller can actually hold a conversation for more than five minutes without it turning into a brawl.”

“That makes one of us.” She breaks into a full smile at this, the olive branch he’s offering, and the whole encounter is kind of morphing into something Bellamy was not prepared for. She’s very, very pretty, and he’s always known it, but seeing her joyful takes her beauty to a transcendent level. 

“What did Miller say?” She prompts when he doesn’t continue. “You can’t just leave me hanging, Blake. I’m on the edge of my seat.”

“He insinuated that you have been taking extra time on my reports and mine alone,” Bellamy says, cautious of breaking this amicable moment they’re having. “And here I’d been thinking you just took your sweet time on everyone’s cases.”

They’re briefly interrupted by the arrival of his lunch, and when he looks back over at her she’s got a calculating expression on.

“That’s an interesting theory,” she says, careful. Like she doesn’t want to break it either. “What exactly is my motive here?”

“That’s what I can’t quite put together,” he admits. “My biggest lead right now is that you might be looking for an excuse to see me.”

“Yeah, right,” she scoffs, coloring slightly again. He smiles ruefully. The peace between them isn’t broken, but it’s not all he hoped it would be, either.

“Wishful thinking, I guess,” he shrugs. “My other thought was that coercing me to pick a fight with you is cheaper than anger management, so–”

She laughs, but it sounds off.

“Close, but still no. I guess this will go down in history as one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of all time.”

“I’m not giving up just yet.” 

There’s an awkward silence, so he takes an overly-large bite of his sandwich and waits for her to say something. Anything.

“I don’t– I’m not obstructing justice. Or at least, I’m not trying to,” she finally spits out, sounding repentant.

“No, I know that,” he assures her. “Once Miller brought it to my attention, I realized you don’t actually take forever to complete the reports. By the time I get down to the morgue to argue with you, they’re always done.”

“And you come to get them pretty quick,” she says, smiling small. “Sooner and sooner with each case.”

“Like I said, cheaper than anger management,” he smirks. “Or a gym membership. I always enjoy a good argument. It’s a good way to get out my pent-up aggression.”

“I relate to that.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t surprise me in the least.” He pauses, looking around the diner. “I like this place.”

“Me, too,” she says, following his line of sight to the green vinyl booths, the worn wooden floors, the jukebox in the corner. She looks proud, like it’s hers in some way, and that only makes him like it more.

“I was thinking about becoming a regular.”

“Really?” She eyes him now, appraising him instead of the restaurant. He’s pretty sure she’s seen him at his most obnoxious, so he’s certain that whatever she’s seeing now, it’s an improvement. 

“Really. And actually, I was thinking– It kind of takes a lot of time up for me to have to run down to the morgue to duke it out with you. I have to carve out a pretty good chunk of time, which I don’t mind doing,” he reminds her, grinning to put her at ease. She was starting to look kind of guilty and that’s not where he was trying to go with this. “But I was thinking it might be more efficient if we combined our arguing and our lunch breaks.”

“I see.”

“Thought it might be a good way to have our–”

“–chicken salad–”

“–and eat it too,” he finishes, relieved when she nods. 

“And then we’ll both have more time to fight crime.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, Detective Blake, I think we have a deal” she says, extending a hand with chipped blue nail polish. It adds a layer to his mental image of her. “Besides, Kane’s has picnic tables on the patio, so if it gets too loud, we can always take it outside.”

“Even better.”

He starts showing up to Kane’s for lunch a couple of days a week. He always sits with her at the bar, and she always orders the chicken salad.

They hardly ever raise their voices to one another anymore, never rising above friendly bickering, but he wouldn’t go back to how it was for anything.

He finds out that she eats free at the diner because her stepfather owns it. Her mother got remarried when Clarke was still pretty young, only in middle school.

“I’m still closer with my dad, obviously,” she says, swirling her homemade chips in her ranch dressing. “But Marcus is my family too.”

“Your dad ever tie the knot again?”

“Last year,” Clarke nods, smiling. “But he moved out west when the relationship got serious, so I knew it was coming. It’s nice to still have my mom close by.”

“Plus, you get free food,” he says, lifting his sandwich. She clinks hers against his with a grin.

“Cheers to that.”

The fragile peace between them grows stronger, slowly. The more lunches Bellamy eats alongside her, the more it becomes something he’s afraid won’t hold.

“Any breaks in the case?” She asks one day, his usual order already waiting for him when he slides onto the stool next to her. He knows she isn’t talking about the robbery of the Best Buy down the street, but rather, the one that matters most, in his mind: the reason she started stalling his reports. She asks about it every time she sees him, and he comes up with increasingly harebrained theories.

“Witness protection.”

“How on earth could it be related to witness protection?” She laughs. Making her laugh is really why his ideas get crazier and crazier.

“Walk with me, here. You used to be a doctor for the mafia, but you turned state’s witness, and if you’re too good at your job, they’ll catch on and track you down.”

“But then I’d be stalling all the reports, not just yours.”

“Hey, I didn’t say it was a good theory,” he shrugs, his straight face splitting into a smile of his own. She’s laughing again, and this is what he wants all the time. He wants to make her laugh, wants to be able to enjoy her company without the confines of his lunch hour. So he takes a risk and says, “I still think my first theory is the best, though.”

Her breath catches and she breaks off, mid-laugh.

“The one where I’m looking for an excuse to see you?”

“Yep.”

“Hmm.” She bites her lip, which is very difficult for him to look away from. “What’s your evidence?”

“Precedent.” She frowns and he hastily adds, “It’s why I was so eager to start the fights.”

There’s a pause in which he can’t look at anything but his milkshake, and then she says, “Congratulations, Detective. Looks like you closed the case.”

He looks up at her sharply, relief flooding through him at the crooked smile on her face. She looks nervous, for some reason, and he reaches over to place his hand over hers on her knee.

“I think we should celebrate,” he says, watching her smile grow as she flips her hand to clasp his. “Dinner, maybe?”

“Do you usually take the culprits out after you’ve gotten them to confess?”

“This would be the first time.”

“Awesome,” she says, squeezing his fingers once. “New case-solving traditions.”

The date is every bit as amazing as he hoped it would be. He takes her to dinner and they banter but it’s relaxing on a level even arguing with her never achieved. He walks her home after, and she’s the one who reaches for his hand this time.

“Thanks for tonight,” she tells him, her voice gentler than he’s ever heard it. “I should have just admitted that this is what I wanted the first time you asked, but my pride kind of got in the way.”

“We got here in the end,” he says, reveling in the feel of her arm brushing against his as they walk. “If only because of my as-yet unmatched interrogation skills.”

“Right,” she laughs, lighting up the night around them. “That’s definitely how it happened.”

“I’m like Kyra Sedgwick. They should create a procedural based on my career.”

“And I’d be the slow-burn love interest you don’t get together with until season eight,” she says, looping his arm around her shoulders and burrowing into his side. It’s kind of hard to walk like that, but he really likes this girl, likes having her close, likes how she smells of springtime and smiles with awe, so he just draws her closer and presses a kiss to her temple.

“Sounds about right.”


End file.
